1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a vehicle air conditioning system. More specifically, the present invention relates to a vehicle air conditioning system provided with intercooling to a high pressure portion.
2. Background Information
A typical vehicle air conditioning system includes a compressor, a condenser, an expansion valve or orifice tube, and an evaporator. The compressor compresses a cool vapor-phase refrigerant (e.g., Freon, R134a) to heat the same, resulting in a hot, high-pressure vapor-phase refrigerant. This hot vapor-phase refrigerant runs through a condenser, typically a coil that dissipates heat. The condenser condenses the hot vapor-phase refrigerant into liquid refrigerant. The liquid refrigerant is throttled through an expansion valve, which evaporates the refrigerant to a cold, low-pressure saturated liquid-vapor-phase refrigerant. This cold saturated liquid-vapor-phase refrigerant runs through the evaporator, typically a coil that absorbs heat from the air fed to the passenger compartment.
In order to improve the efficiency of such vehicle air conditioning systems without sacrificing fuel economy, intercooling has been added enabling the transfer of heat from a high refrigerant tube downstream from the condenser to a low refrigerant pressure tube downstream from the evaporator. Such transfer of heat improves the efficiency of the vehicle air conditioning system. However, in peak load conditions, such as extremely high ambient temperature conditions, the effectiveness of the vehicle air conditioning system can sometimes be insufficient to adequately cool the passenger compartment of the vehicle even with such intercooling.
In view of the above, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art from this disclosure that there exists a need for an improved air conditioning system that increases the cooling capacity of the vehicle air conditioning system. This invention addresses this need in the art as well as other needs, which will become apparent to those skilled in the art from this disclosure.